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EXHIBITION SYNOPSIS

About Pantone

HOW Art Museum (Wenzhou) is honored to announce that it will host the exhibition "Pantone" which will open to the public on July 13 and continue till November 8, 2019. This exhibition brings together 14 artists/artist collectives from China and abroad: Jan Albers, Angélica Dass, Dong Dawei, Olafur Eliasson, Feng Yan, Hong Shaopei, Li Jinghu, Liu Jianhua, Felipe Pantone, Quayola, SHIMURABros, Yan Lei, Yao Peng, and Zhang Yue. Of the topics to be discussed, the artists will explore the threshold of color itself, i.e. the inherent limits and potential effects of the semantic mechanism of color.

Compared with the Chinese name "color threshold" in the exhibition, the English name "Pantone" directly discusses the consistency of industrialization exemplified in the "Pantone Matching System" which has standardized the definition of color sequencing. As far as visual perception is concerned, the distribution and density of cone cells, which are responsible for daytime light perception, in the human retina vary from person to person, and may even have defects or omitted data, which in turn results in the diversity of perceived colors. Therefore, the subtle differences between thousands of people and thousands of colors make color the most relative medium in art.

As a natural phenomenon, color is a complex concoction of history and culture manifested as social reality in the form of a non-existent trans-cultural standard. The rather subjective process of color cognition is deeply influenced by cultural genes and personal experience. With the changing of generations, society has bestowed different connotations and criteria onto colors and determining their different uses and values. Now, Pantone as a well-acquainted proponent of the promotes new popular colors every year.

Of the works to be exhibited, there are extended explorations of Op Art and optico-kinetic movement, presentations of specific production times in their relation to the formation of given colors, as well as the direct implementation of the Pantone system as a means of reflecting on social and political issues. These works incorporate emotional color components as an entry point of awakening synesthesia, calling for the audience to mobilize sensory parameters beyond visuality while actively participating in the process of cognitive conjoinment.